Thursday, August 16, 2007

First visit from the Tooth Fairy



My son had had a loose tooth for almost a month. When we arrived home from daycare on Monday, he said, “Hey mom, watch this.” I watched as he moved it to a 90 degree angle, still attached to his gums. He was delighted by the horrified look on my face, which tells me that is what he intended all along. The little imp.

I told him that if his tooth could withstand being at a 90 degree angle, it would probably come out with little effort. We went to the bathroom and he tried very gently pulling on it. It didn’t budge. Excited by the thought of a visit from the Tooth Fairy, he told me I could pull it. This sort of shocked me because most of the time, he is (how shall I put this nicely?) a wimp. Nevertheless, I grabbed a hold of his tooth and gave a firm tug. And just like that, I had a tiny tooth in my palm. I was almost as excited as the day he got his first tooth.

We had a few tense minutes where he panicked because he saw blood, but when that was over, he grabbed his tooth and ran upstairs to put it in his Tooth Fairy pillow. (I ordered it from THIS Etsy seller, and since they were so reasonably priced, I went ahead and ordered one for the baby too. She’ll need one eventually, right?) He even made sure the pillow was easily accessible to the Tooth Fairy.

When it was time for bed, he was so excited he couldn’t sleep. It was adorable, except that I was trying to stay awake as well so that I could make sure that the, ahem, Tooth Fairy visited. I finally gave up and called my husband who said he would take care of everything. I woke up around 3:00am and heard my husband traipsing around the house, and I knew the Tooth Fairy had been there.

The next morning my son came to see me while I was drying my hair, and he looked worried. I asked, “Did the Tooth Fairy come to see you last night?” He had a hard time looking at me and he said, “Well, he lives a long ways away from my house.” I said, “What? Didn’t he didn’t come to see you?” He said, “Not yet, he lives a long ways away.” I said, “Are you sure? Let me see your pillow.” We went to his room and I showed him that the tooth was gone, and I glanced down and noticed two gold dollar coins that had fallen in between the pillows on his bed. I told him “Your tooth is gone. The Tooth Fairy wouldn’t take your tooth and not leave something for you, so let’s look around and see if maybe something fell out of your tooth pillow, ok?” I moved the pillows on the bed and his eyes grew huge as he yelled, “OOH, MONEEEEEEEY!”

I observed something inspiring from my son that morning. He actually made up an excuse as to why he thought the Tooth Fairy hadn’t come to see him. Even though he was visibly upset, he had used the words “not yet,” which to me meant that he still had hope that the Tooth Fairy would visit. We had told him about the Tooth Fairy before he lost his tooth, but we had no idea if he understood how the process worked. Yet he was ready to give the Tooth Fairy the benefit of the doubt when he thought that s/he didn’t come to get his tooth. We don’t know if this is a learned behavior or if it’s just part of his personality, but we appreciate his optimism. If he can give someone the benefit of the doubt, perhaps we can too.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Being completely ridiculous

I have been a bad blogger lately. I originally started blogging as a way to keep my out-of-town family and friends in the loop about the happenings in my family, which is great if I actually take the time to write something. And there are TONS of things to write about lately, so I will try to be better about making time to blog.

First and foremost, the girl has tubes. Her ENT doctor said she definitely needed them and wanted to work us in as soon as humanly possible. Being the informed parent that I am due to the obsessive amount of research I did on tubes (or bilateral myringotomy with tubes, if you want to get specific), I worried very little about this. Her daddy, on the other hand, freaked the hell out. He scheduled to take off that day and he was so worried that he was even going to have his parents come sit with us in the waiting room during her surgery. I tried to tell him it's not really a surgery, per se, but more a procedure that must be done under anesthesia. It's also far less risky than the outpatient surgery I had 3 years ago where they removed my gallbladder. Hello! Remember that? I had an entire organ removed and you didn't worry about me the way you are fretting about Kelsey getting tubes. I said, "You know you're being completely ridiculous, right?" "Yes, but you do this kind of thing all the time." "Yeah, but I'm the mom. It's my JOB."

So we took her to the outpatient surgery center on August 6th at 7:00am and did all the pre-op paperwork. We met with various nurses, an anesthesiologist, and her doctor. It was a quick and easy procedure that took all of 10 minutes, and they gave her inhaled gas to put her under instead of an IV. She woke up in recovery about 5 minutes after the procedure was over and was very quiet at first. I mistakenly thought to myself, “Wow, this was easier than I thought it would be.” That’s when she started screaming. And screaming. And screaming some more. The anesthesiologist had warned us that most kids have that reaction so we were prepared. We tried to offer her food, drink, a boob, anything to make her calm down, and our offers to help only seemed to make her angry and she screamed louder. This lasted about 30 minutes until finally the anesthesia wore off a little and I started walking around the recovery area with her. The post-op nurse told us we were free to go, and we were home by 9:00am. She was fine the rest of the day, although she took a few more naps than usual. By mid to late afternoon she was giggling and trying to tackle her brother, so we considered her officially recovered. So far the only setback she has had since her procedure was when one of her ears started draining last Thursday, and y’all, that was gross. I know it’s perfectly common for that to happen and that’s what the tubes are designed for…but still. Gross.

By far the highlight of that day was when I was sitting on the toilet and my son yelled to me, “Mom, there’s a lady on the phone who says the policeman is going to come see us.” I told him to bring me the phone, looked at the readout, and it said 911. Here’s how the conversation went:
Me: Hello?
911: Yes, ma’am. Your child dialed 911.
Me: Oh my God.
911: Do you have an emergency?
Me: No, there’s no emergency. I am so sorry.
911: That’s alright, ma’am. You are sure you have no emergency?
Me: Yes, I’m positive there is no emergency. My son recently learned about 911 at daycare and now I’ll have a talk with him about when it’s appropriate to call. I am VERY sorry.
911: That’s quite alright, ma’am. Have a good day.

While I am supremely happy that he knows how to dial 911 if we need him to, we did sit down and talk about how you ONLY dial it if there is a true emergency. My boy… Of course, then I hurriedly tidied up the house just in case they sent an officer over anyway. Because it's my job to be completely ridiculous.